


The  Meteorological Adventure of the Caribbean Client

by executrix



Category: Sherlock Holmes (bookverse)
Genre: AU, Crack, Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:36:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holmes and Watson uncover dreadful doings on the Yorkshire moors</p>
            </blockquote>





	The  Meteorological Adventure of the Caribbean Client

**Author's Note:**

> You'll have to cut me some slack on timelines...but, considering that this is total crack, you'll have to cut me plenty of slack anyway.

I am proud to say that Sherlock Holmes endorsed all of my observations: that the client’s fair hair yet somewhat darkened skin betokened lengthy residence in a hot clime, followed by a fairly recent return to England. His clothes were once good, but no longer in English mode and were somewhat worn, suggesting a decline in fortune.

And, indeed, it proved that his family had once owned broad lands, but now he was reduced to working on a plantation in Bertramstown. Holmes told the client to return to our rooms in four days; so quickly had he formed some ideas as to the problem put before us and how to resolve it.

Holmes said that, in the course of our sojourn in Yorkshire, we might encounter the Gytrash or even the foul German spectre the Vampyre. I knew that this was merely his whimsy, but I should, nonetheless, pack my service revolver.

“I have already formed some speculations about this sad but not uncommon matter,” Holmes said. “He would not speak ill of a family member of course, but the English climate does not always suit those whose heritage is warmer—particularly those who were already highly-strung. Nor does matrimony suit every lady. But I fear already that, although I can allay his fears to a certain extent, I will discover something that will greatly distress him.”

The portion of our journey by railway was uneventful, but our path took us to an isolated house, some miles from the station. Hence, we bespoke lodging at the nearest tavern, and, giving little account of ourselves, obtained some local information. As we ate our dinner, Holmes apologized to me: he felt it necessary to pass me of as his valet, so that he could seek intelligence in the drawing room while I kept my ears open in the servants’ hall.

Quite correctly, Holmes surmised that, in that lonely place, far from civilized company, the lady of the house would be glad to speak with the bearer of a letter of introduction from Viscountess Ethmere. He would have preferred to speak to the master, but he was said to be away on business.

Holmes was equally correct that, on a chilly grey day, the housekeeper would be glad of my company in the kitchen. My friendly silence (broken only by compliments on her Madeira cake—which led her to disclose some most interesting intelligence) unlocked a stream of volubility that can have had few outlets.

Holmes and I returned to the inn, and compared notes. “As I drank my tea—and most welcome it was in the damp—a pretty young girl joined us. By her dress and manners, clearly, she was no servant, as I confirmed when she said that she had no governess—her belle-mere did not trust them—but was on her school holidays.”

“And what do you conclude from this?” Holmes asked, eating sparingly of the roast fowl before him, while I tucked into a very decent mutton chop.

“That it is a happy family, with the lady of the house enceinte, and the older girl pleased with her ‘pretty mother.’”

“No wonder the French say that the ‘rosbifs’ cannot speak their language,” he said. I reddened, angry and yet somewhat embarrassed, recalling Holmes’ French familial connections. “A belle-mere is not a pretty mother but a stepmother. It is apotropaic, like calling the Fates ‘the kindly ones.’ And, in any case, we know that the marriage is of but two years’ duration, and the house is filled with servants of the greatest respectability. Would they remain beneath the roof of notorious sinners?”

I refrained from pointing out that the charming Miss Adele did not seem to have a respectable pedigree, yet the servants retained their place.

“Watson, it is as I suspected. He has done great wrong, and must be brought to book for it.”

“The police?” I asked.

“Those unsubtle fools? They will not believe that murder has been done if they have no corpse, and they will wink at worse than murder merely because no law has been broken.” He paused for several long moments, gazing into the fire, then his energy returned. “Sometimes, I suppose, the old ways are the best,” Holmes said, calling for pen, ink, and paper. He addressed a letter to the master of the house, stating that it would be to his advantage to call at the inn, because his sins would find him out—but, perhaps, the day of reckoning could be postponed on adequate financial consideration.

The inn did not keep a livery stable, but it did have a dogcart that could be rented for errands. The driver was taking eggs and poultry to the great house, so the letter could be dispatched as well.

The next night, as I sat in my room at the inn, our quarry burst in, and a black-haired, grim-visaged blighter he was too.

“What the devil do you want with me?” he asked.

“I am aware that you are a bigamist, insofar as when you married your present lady—who I know to be entirely innocent in these matters—you had a wife living, and do to this day. And, what is worse, when your first—your true—wife’s brother sought to prevent the false marriage, you did away with him.”

“This is false, and I’ll have my action of slander on you if you repeat this in any man’s hearing.”

“Dr. Cathcart’s Private Asylum, in Basingstoke…”

Before I could withdraw the service revolver from my pocket, he sprang at my throat, and very well might have choked the life out of me had Holmes not stepped out from behind the great oak press, where he had taken the precaution of arming himself with the wrought-iron poker. One blow and the scoundrel collapsed at our feet.

The wind howled and rain slashed at us as we drove over the moors. Holmes drove the dogcart to the servant’s entrance. When the bell was answered, we dragged the unconscious man to the doorway. “Your master has met with an accident, Mrs. Fairfax,” Holmes said, as we laid him down more or less gently on the stone flags. “Perhaps his horse shied at the lightning, or slipped in the heavy rain. Do not fear. He was examined by a doctor at the inn, who said that he will recover his senses in due course.”

Indeed, he was already stirring, so we departed quickly, Holmes handing a portfolio to Mrs. Fairfax. “These documents were removed from this house,” he told her. “Kindly see that they are returned to its doyenne. She will observe that accounts for one ‘Bertha M. R.’ were greatly in arrears until shortly after settlement of the estate of her uncle in Madeira, but since that time they are current.” We returned to the inn, fetched our luggage, and one of the servants drove us to the railway station. We were glad indeed to return to the warmth of our home.

On the appointed day, our client returned. “I am very sorry to say that I believe your brother Richard has been murdered,” Holmes said, topping up a whisky with the gasogene and handing it to our client to dampen the shock. “I surmise that, rather than employ an enquiry agent, he himself attempted to ascertain your sister’s—and her husband’s—whereabouts. But when he found your sister’s husband, he was on the brink of entering into a second, and of course, bigamous marriage. Doubtless your brother protested” (I rather think Holmes’ own belief that ‘attempted blackmail’ was a more accurate description) “and, unfortunately, met with his death.”

“But where is his body?” Mason said, wrath tinting his otherwise ghastly-pale features.

Holmes gestured eloquently. “The moors are vast…”

“By G-d, tell me where this villain is to be found, and I’ll choke the life out of him myself,” Mason said.

“Perhaps this will somewhat assuage your feelings.” Holmes handed him a newspaper cutting. Apparently late at night, immediately after our visit to Yorkshire, Thornfield Hall had gone up in flames. The epicentre of the blaze was the master’s own bedroom. His life was spared by his valorous wife, but at great cost: the master of Thornfield was blind and had lost his right hand. “The mills of God grind slowly,” Holmes said, “But they grind exceedingly fine.”

I thought that Mr. Mason had left 221B, but, while I was engaged in pasting the cutting into our scrap-book, I could hear a strange sound. Holmes appeared to be catechizing him in the various shades of ladies’ hair.

A few days later, I had another cutting to add, this time recounting strange events at a private madhouse where, after the visit of a hairdresser, one of the denizens had unaccountably vanished. Holmes also gave me a fragment of the shipping news: the _Euterpe_ had embarked for Spanish Town, Jamaica.

To Sherlock Holmes, Jane Rochester will always be **the** woman.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Meltha’s delightful “Jayne Eyre,” http://archiveofourown.org/works/274382/chapters/434471 which led to ask why, as John Sutherland suggests, Rochester didn't just stash the inconvenient Missus in a private asylum and save himself a pack of trouble. But that might have been only a temporary solution...


End file.
